COVINGTON, LA – The Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) is recruiting students for the third year in St. Tammany Parish and will walk 20-25 students in grades six-12 through the process of creating a business from idea, to design, to funding, to launch, in an invaluable crash course in being their own boss.
This fun, projects-based approach empowers students to take charge of their futures in a profound way, program reps said. Through a partnership with the Northshore Community Foundation and Shelby P. LaSalle Jr., LLC, as well as Northshore Technical Community College and Professional Project Services, students across St. Tammany Parish have the chance to participate in the 26-week program.
Participating students can be from public, private, parochial, charter or homeschool backgrounds and will meet every Monday for three hours at Northshore Technical Community College.
Applications are being accepted through Friday, Sept. 15, here
The Young Entrepreneurs Academy boasts locations across 39 states. Shelby LaSalle first introduced the YEA program to St. Tammany Parish two years ago. With about 30 business volunteers and $60,000 of donated funding, the academy takes 20-25 students each year and helps them learn how to be an entrepreneur.
“It’s kind of like taking junior high and high school students and, in a short period of time, creating confident entrepreneurs,” said LaSalle. “And it’s amazing to see the transformation. I don’t know who gets more out of the classes, me or the kids.”
The program has three phases, which involve classroom time with three instructors and 10-15 guest speakers, field trips to several businesses and a mentoring process where individual students or groups design a business. A design phase is when mentors help the students create business plans and prepare presentations to give to an investor panel. The investor panel has a dedicated sum they can use to invest in the best businesses presented. The panel will also choose one of the businesses to send on to a regional competition in Rochester, New York, and possibly at the national level in Washington D.C.
Students who compete well at the national level can receive in-kind donations, other investors and even full college scholarships.
